Joe Dante

Not too long ago director Joe Dante (Gremlins, The Howling) programmed a 7-part film festival, called “Dante’s Inferno,” for the New Beverly Cinema in Hollywood . Twelve movies, mostly from the B to B- range, made the cut and the whole thing wrapped up with the screening of a 259-minute fruitcake called The Movie Orgy. It had originally run 7 hours. Here’s how Dante defined it on Tim Lucas’ “Video WatchBlog”:

“This [is] the first, one nite only public showing in many years of my first project. In 1968 when ‘camp’ was king, Jon Davison and I put together a counterculture compendium of 16mm bits and pieces (TV show openings, commercials, parts of features, old serials etc.), physically spliced them in ironic juxtapositions and ran the result at the Philadelphia College of Art interspersed with parts of a Bela Lugosi serial. The reaction was phenomenal. This led to The Movie Orgy, a 7-hour marathon of old movie clips and stuff with a crowd-pleasing anti-war, anti-military, anti-establishment slant that played the Fillmore East and on college campuses all over the country for years -- always the one print, viewed through a haze of beer and controlled substances. We called it a 2001-splice odyssey. It's still a pop time capsule that will bring many a nostalgic chuckle from baby boomers and dazed expressions of WTF?! from anyone else.”

There was no plot to The Movie Orgy so audience members could spend a lengthy break in the rest room, step outside to smoke a cigar, or go home to feed the dogs and when they got back to their seats they knew they hadn’t missed anything. You know, like watching Star Wars, Episodes 1-3 back to back.

Certainly Dante’s films have garnered a loyal fan base since Piranha in 1978. Most of his pictures pull off the wonderful trick of parodying popular genres or specific movies--Piranha spoof Jaws—and being a certifiable example of the genre at the same time.

No one in my part of the country seems interested in sponsoring a whacktrospective of this sort. I tried a few years ago to generate some interest in the idea of a series of short retrospectives and put together some single-weekend programs (on the themes of the influence of vaudeville on early talkies, and various aspects of film noir) but money for advertising wasn’t forthcoming and the project suffered a quick demise.

I would love to have been able to attend “Dante’s Inferno,” but even more I’d like to see a retrospective of Dante’s films.  So many people write him off, looking at his work and seeing only the genre trappings—and too often, the disappointing box office returns. I think, however, that were they to look a little closer they would realize that the films contain a thread of themes that repay attention, and more significantly a repeated approach to the material that is steady and refreshingly off-kilter.

There’s absolutely nothing to prevent you from staging your own Joe Dante Film Festival. Here are my six favorites, counting down to number one.

Masters of Horror: Homecoming (2005)

            This is an approximately hour-long episode of the premium cable series. The corpses of dead soldiers return as zombies and win the right to vote. Losers get their brains eaten. Solid political satire with a concept Swift might have loved.

Explorers (1985)

            One of Dante’s, or anyone else’s, oddest films. It starts off like a Spielbergian nostalgia-rama about a group of boys who construct their own space ship out of dreams, wishes, and star dust, and then morphs into the most unexpected cinematic shaggy dog story since The Last Laugh. Odds are you’ll hate it (most viewers do) but after you quit being pissed off at the way Dante’s played you, you may enjoy the joke.

The Howling (1981)

            Released the same year as John Landis’ An American Werewolf in London , and with a similarly black humored approach to its subject, Dante’s film, co-written by John Sayles, is just wicked. Watch it once for the story, a second time for Rob Bottin’s hotdamn prosthetic effects, and once more for the inside jokes and cameos. You still won’t be tired of it.

Rock ‘n’ Roll High School (1979)

            Alan Arkush is the credited director, but Dante and Jerry Zucker (Airplane!) helped out. Dante and Arkush came up with the original story, which concerns the last days of a southern California high school brought low by dat ol’ devil music and The Ramones. Note a handmade recruiting poster on the wall for the People’s Temple. They’re offering free Kool-Aid. Never has the anarchic spirit of rock ‘n’ roll been so much fun.

Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)

            Six years passed before this sequel to the 1984 hit Gremlins came out, and although Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment was still involved, this time the movie is almost pure Dante. The jokes are faster, slyer, and much more satirical, and the entire enterprise is wildly surreal at a level Dali would have appreciated.

Matinee (1993)

            For me, this is the great one. It’s my childhood—except for the fact that the kid involved actually has a date. Young Gene (Simon Fenton) has turned the makers of cheesy horror movies into his personal friends. It’s 1962, his dad is in the Navy, and his family is based at Key West when the Russians decide to ship missiles to Cuba . Luckily for Gene, horror director Lawrence Woolsey (John Goodman), a stand-in for that wonderfully loony Hollywood showman William Castle, has brought his new shocker Mant! to town for a try out. Woolsey’s movie within the movie is a feast of lousy special effects and overwrought acting from genuine stars of ‘50s-60s sci fi—Kevin McCarthy, William Schallart, and Robert Cornthwaite, with Cathy Moriarty as Woolsey’s perennial leading lady.